


A Game of Circles: Season 1

by Mendeia



Series: A Game of Circles [1]
Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: But they're still spies so there are many secrets, By which I mean a tag for literally every episode, Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Epistolary (sometimes), Family Feels, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 13,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: Conversation is a game of circles. – Ralph Waldo EmersonIn every episode of NCIS:LA, there is an unseen moment, a hidden exchange between a spymaster and her finest student. As handler and agent, or protector and orphan, or, sometimes, defenders of one another even when the other would *really rather they not, thanks,* Hetty and Callen have a relationship worth uncovering. Tag for every single episode of season 1.





	1. S1E1: Identity

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings!
> 
> So, this was a labor of the last year when I got wholly and entirely addicted to NCIS:LA. As with most series that I begin long after they've debuted, I started in the middle. I think the first episodes I watched were somewhere in the end of season 5 into season 6. Almost immediately, I fell in ABSOLUTE love with Hetty. (Okay, who isn't in love with Hetty?) And it was her dynamic with Callen in particular that lit my heart on fire.
> 
> However, as I started the series from the beginning, I realized that certain truths which become canonical later were not yet established, as in the very first episode when Callen and Hetty talk about him returning to work and he tells her that he doesn't know what the G stands for – which she obviously knows from long exposure.
> 
> Therefore, I began this project as a series of the unseen interactions between Callen and Hetty, cleaning up some of the missteps in the early episodes and fitting pieces of canon in where they belong.
> 
> NOTE: THAT MEANS THERE ARE SPOILERS.
> 
> NOTE 2: The spoilers aren't that bad.
> 
> I didn't give away any information that Callen doesn't have at the start of the series (i.e. what the G stands for, some of Hetty's own history, etc.). However, this story will reference facts which are not in evidence in the series until much later, specifically regarding how long Callen and Hetty have known one another and some of the details of that (as in him knowing about her various houses, etc.). Basically, I wrote a tag to every single episode season 1-7 predicated on the relationship between Callen and Hetty as it stands in the later seasons.
> 
> Yes, that means I have 168 of these. They are fully canon-compliant as of the middle of season 10, focused on the relationship between Hetty and Callen. They will sometimes involve others, but the focus is narrow. They are of varying lengths, 500 words to a few thousand, always tightly connected to the specific episode referenced. Apparently they work well as a read-along for a rewatch.
> 
> Because there are so many, I will post 3 or 4 a week for the duration of 2019. Feel free to follow along and I very, very much hope you enjoy this labor of love that was the work of last year!

It was a ritual, one that had been repeated countless times over the years, begun the very first day he had spent as Hetty's...whatever he was. Starting as a not-quite-adopted, not-quite-foster kid, then a student of tradecraft and the art of espionage, then a protege, and eventually an employee – for years, G Callen had lived in a constant flux, in and out of Hetty's orbit, drawn back like a comet pulled by cosmic gravity.

He might go away for weeks or months at a time on assignment, or just to stretch his legs out in the world. He might be summoned by the government, by a favor owed, or he might, as had happened this time, have chosen to keep his distance while recovering from injury so that he would lead no weakness back to anyone or anything that truly mattered.

Knowing perfectly well, of course, that Hetty would gladly be his shelter once more if he allowed it. That she would never see his injury and recovery as a burden, that she would give as selflessly to him now as she had in his youth.

But Hetty also knew when to let G make his own choices, when to respect his independence and his raw courage. So she let him go, and he let her let him go, and the cycle continued.

And every time he returned, they had a variation on the same conversation which had been their first.

("Now, you'll obviously need some better clothes. I believe those may have been purchased from a garbage bin off the boardwalk. I had no idea the welfare state was so fashion-ignorant.")

"Now, wardrobe for your undercover work. I know you grew up in the well-meaning but cold embrace of the welfare state, Mister Callen. But just because you were an orphan doesn't mean that you have to dress like Oliver Twist."

But what was _said_ signified nothing compared to what was _intended_.

It was comfortable, and it was code. It meant everything it had those years ago, and now so much more.

Then: _You have a home here. You are safe here. I will give you this and ask nothing in return._

Now: _Are you truly ready to return to work? Will you be able to keep yourself and your team safe?_

_Yes, Hetty. I'm ready. I'm fine. Thank you for caring._

"Now, we need something modern, individual that speaks to the man within."

Then: _I see that you have great potential, Mister Callen. I intend to help you find it._

Now: _I see you. I know you. I am proud of what you have become._

"That's not for you to admire, it's for you to try on. Here and here. This or this?"

Then and Now: _Are you ready to take this next step?_

"Those."

_I'm still me, Hetty. I'm ready. I'm okay._

"Fitted boot jean, medium weight, distressed denim. I think we need something more relaxed, Mr. Callen. "

Then: _I understand that trust does not come easily to you. I hope to see that change._

Now: _You have my trust. You are not alone anymore._

He laughed. _I haven't forgotten, Hetty. I know you're here for me._

"Something amuses you?"

"Oh, it's just that in three years you've never called me G."

Then: _I don't even have a name. Just a letter. I'm nothing. Why do you care?_

Now: _You pretend to be my boss, as if there were only three shared years between us. But you know me beyond the G. You know what I am chasing. And still you're here._

"It's not a name, it's a letter. Now, if you were to tell me what the G stands for... "

Then: _I don't care what it stands for. I care what you will choose to stand for._

Now: _I know you better than you know yourself. I will let you go, but you must come back._

"No one ever told me. "

Then: _I don't know who I really am._

Now: _I know who I am. Thank you for showing me._

And in that look exchanged they said everything that had no words at all.


	2. S1E2: The Only Easy Day

After seeing his partner off for the night, Callen found Hetty sitting on a stack of mats in the gym, apparently meditating. But he knew she was aware of everything, every sound in the building. And while it might be bad form to interrupt her, he knew from long experience that Hetty would rather be interrupted now than have him stare at her waiting for the next hour.

"All good?" he asked.

"Yes." She did not open her eyes. "I take it from your presence here, and the lack of Mister Hanna's continued assault against his current favorite punching bag, that your partner is feeling more like himself?"

"Yeah, I think so. It's always tough on him when it's a SEAL."

"I'm aware. Thank you for having his back."

G smiled. "That's what partners do."

"Indeed it is."

Callen turned to leave, but Hetty called him back.

"Oh, and Mister Callen?"

"Yes, Hetty?"

"Thank you for your stellar effort today in not getting shot."

"Like I told Sam – "

"Yes, I heard. I highly recommend giving up getting shot. It will be better for your medical bills, your caseload, and your wardrobe."

"Always about the wardrobe." G sighed, but he was smiling.

Hetty opened her eyes and peered at him. "Little ninja?"

Callen smirked. "Good night, Hetty."

She smiled, warmth in her eyes. "Good night, Mister Callen."


	3. S1E3: Predator

G circled back to the office after grabbing some dinner elsewhere – it helped sell the illusion that he wasn't sleeping at the office and living out of his duffel bag again. Of course, working with a group of undercover agents, masters of spycraft with observational skills that could make Sherlock Holmes envious, he knew he probably wasn't getting away with it. Maybe the rank and file of the office didn't know. Maybe Eric and Dom hadn't figured it out.

But Nate, Kensi, and Sam? Of course they knew.

And Hetty?

When he re-entered the office, there was a piece of paper sitting on the couch which was his preferred bed, and a new pile of blankets and sheets.

> _Make sure you add these to the wash in the morning. Do not just fold them and reuse them. It's unsanitary._
> 
> _H._
> 
> _P.S. I didn't tell Sam any story about Nepal. I told him the story about Bhutan, which you already know. Neither one of you is ever hearing the true Nepal story if I have anything to say about it._

G laughed. He spread out the sheets and moved the couch cushions until they were just right, but paused before lying down. Hetty's office was dark, but there was enough ambient light for him to make out her desk and her things.

Somehow, her very presence filled the entire space, like a scent in the air, or a strain of music. Like how she and her world had filled up his whole life.

G snatched a piece of paper from his spot at the table and scrawled a few lines on it. He slipped it under her teapot where she would see it in the morning while he was doing his workout.

> _Thank you._
> 
> _G_
> 
> _P.S. It almost makes me wish I had more training in hacking. Who knows what I could learn about all the stories you never tell? But, at least I get my exercise. Kind of like that time you and I ended up going climbing in Nepal. Which is how I know the story already. Sherpas talk too much._

The next morning, Hetty frowned at him without saying a word for a full hour. Only when they had to go into a briefing did she finally glare at him and shake her head.

"You're welcome."


	4. S1E4: Search and Destroy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the people who have read, liked, kudosed, and commented! It's always a little nerve-wracking to enter a new fandom, and you all have made me feel very welcome.
> 
> Enjoy!

G thought about it all day, what Hetty had said while outfitting him for his undercover work.

"Sometimes damaged goods can actually be more valuable _because_ of their unique qualities."

Leave it to Hetty to remind him of his worth and his value by talking about a second-hand t-shirt.

When he turned the clothing in at the end of the day, he noticed that Sam had left his origami swan, or whatever it was – no, swans definitely didn't have tails, he'd asked Eric to look it up – in the pocket of the jacket. Like Hetty really needed a sticky wrapper folded up into a mutated waterfowl.

Still, G didn't want to be outdone.

He sniggered as he wrote "No blood" on a slip of paper and pinned it to the shirt.

And he knew Hetty would hear the rest.

_I'm not damaged this time._

_I came out clean._

_I'm still able to give my best, and I could do the right thing today without hurting a person who didn't deserve it._

_Without having to dwell on my own hurt._

_I came back again. Used or damaged, I still came back._

The next time Callen needed a pair of pants from wardrobe, he found something in one of the pockets. It had to be from Hetty, because anyone else in the OSP who dared touch the clothing which was Hetty's personal domain would have been found in pieces on the floor already. And it had to be for him, because G knew for a fact that these jeans didn't fit the others.

It was a white tea napkin, folded into a perfect origami turtle.

And it was actually a turtle, as opposed to Sam's mess of a three-winged bird.

Callen smiled and made sure to transfer it from his pocket to his duffel bag before the end of the case.

Hetty hadn't even needed words to remind him that he carried his home with him, not because he lived out of a bag stashed under a desk in the office, but because it was where his heart lay.

Callen couldn't do origami, but he drew a crude picture of a hermit crab and left it in the pocket of Hetty's sweater that night.

_My home does move with me – because you lent me a shell._


	5. S1E5: Killshot

Hetty was staying late, typing furiously and, if Callen was any judge, in another language. There was something to the cadence of her typing that didn't feel like the same way she wrote in English. But he couldn't pin down which language just from listening across a room.

Callen was certain she could have said, though, if their positions were reversed and she was listening to him instead. It was just one of the things that made Hetty both terrifying and incomparable.

"Yes, Mister Callen?" she called over, interrupting his thinking with her uncanny-as-usual timing.

G smirked. "So, Russian or Greek?" he yelled back.

"Romanian." Hetty looked up over the laptop. "If you wish to speak to me, by all means, my office is available. But I will not shout at you across the floor."

He sighed and pushed up from his own computer. Even though Hetty's office had no walls, there was something warm and welcoming about her space that was unique in the whole building.

Hetty shut her laptop and regarded him as he sat down. "Something on your mind, Mister Callen?"

"Just...after today, I was wondering."

She raised an eyebrow and shut her laptop to give him her full attention. "Yes? I've rarely known you to be so circumspect with your questions, my boy."

It took everything G had not to flinch when she called him that. Not in discomfort, never that, but for fear of giving too much away.

"Well, with Director Vance and Kai…" He looked closely at her. "Are there...any old opponents I ought to know about from _your_ past? People who might come calling someday?"

Hetty gave him a smug, tiny smile. "More than I can recall, Mister Callen, assuming they are still alive." She sat back and let out a breath. "However, I believe many of them will have already fallen to the shadows of the past by now."

Callen was _not_ comforted. "But you would tell me, wouldn't you? If there was someone gunning for you?"

"In our line of work, one develops many enemies. You know that. Sometimes those enemies turn into allies later on in life, or even acquaintances. But never friends. Those who stand on opposite sides of the wall will always be divided in the end. And though our world has changed, and certain walls have fallen, there are still many unclaimed debts that haunt us all."

She hadn't actually answered the question, and he knew that was answer enough. G forced his apprehension down and made a passable attempt at humor. "Well, if you're ever going to go all Ahab on a white whale somewhere, just let me know about it, okay?"

"And you would be my Ishmael, is that it?" she returned. "Following me into my battle, but maintaining an open mind while I hunted my prey?"

"Something like that."

"Hmm." She folded her hands. "Then, Mister Callen, I hope to thoroughly disappoint you."

"Oh?"

"Yes, of course." Hetty's smile went dark and sharp for a moment so quick maybe no one but G, who had known her so long would have spotted it. "Even if I did embark upon such a quest, you can be certain I would not endanger my ship or my crew to do so. Your story as Ishmael would start and end with 'and she sailed into the horizon to battle her demons alone.'"

Callen opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with a gesture.

"And that is how it will be, Mister Callen. I trust you will obey me if or when such a time arrives. Now, you have paperwork to finish and so do I." Hetty reopened her laptop, effectively ending the conversation.

G rose and returned to his own computer, glancing over his shoulder just once.

_Not a chance in hell, Hetty. You disappear on a crusade, I'll be right behind you. Somebody comes after you, they're going to have to go through me._

And at her desk, Hetty knew quite well what he was thinking.

She hid a smile.

_And you, Mister Callen, underestimate my willingness to do whatever is necessary. I know you would wish to protect me._

_But it is not myself who needs protecting, if such a time truly comes._

_And they will have to go through me to get to you._


	6. S1E6: Keepin' It Real

Hetty walked into the boathouse only forty seconds after Secret Service Agent Natalie Giordano left. G had turned off a few lights, but was staring at the table in front of the big screen.

"Expecting someone?" she asked him.

"Not exactly."

"I see." Hetty didn't bother to ask him what he was remembering – she knew, of course. She cleared her throat and moved to stand next to him so they could both look at their dark reflections in the screen. "I haven't had a chance to speak to you about your interrogation of Alex Walder."

G nodded.

"I won't ask you the obvious question."

No, G knew that she wouldn't. _Did that really happen?_ She didn't have to ask.

Of all the lies Callen told in his life about himself, about his job, about his feelings, he very rarely lied about his past if he spoke of it at all. His past was the only thing he had carried with him through dozens of foster homes and an uncaring world. Sometimes it was the only thing about him that was true.

"I only want to know what happened to that man."

Callen had heard her speak with more warmth in her tone about foreign dictators and assassins. But, then, he knew that she was protective of children generally, and of himself in particular. A foster father who had been a threat to a child while in his care, well – Hetty would probably prefer the company of members of the Russian mafia to such a person.

He smirked. "Going to go hunt him down for me, Hetty?"

"I was thinking about it." And while there was plausible deniability in her humor, in the wry look of her eyes, there was a steely cold seriousness, too.

He faced her, tipping his head. "If I told you he was still alive and still beating foster kids, would you really go after him?"

She gave him a sideways look. "The better question would be, wouldn't you?" she returned.

"That wouldn't exactly be legal." He considered. "Or fair."

"Neither legality nor fairness always apply in our line of work, Mister Callen."

He huffed. "No, Hetty. I don't have to go after him, and neither do you. He's dead. He died when he got drunk and drove his car into the side of a truck on the 101 not long after I left."

"Good."

She didn't seem inclined to say anything else, but she also didn't move. It was an old trick, one G knew very well, one that worked on everybody, himself included, even when they knew it was coming. Hetty had a way of simply standing quietly, relaxed, hands folded behind her back, and waiting – and people would speak. Whatever was on their mind, whatever they had no intention of voicing aloud, it came out when Hetty simply offered a silence to be filled.

"About that...nature versus nurture thing," he said finally.

"Ah." She nodded.

"We both know I…"

"Mister Callen." She looked into his face with the same firm look she gave people when she was about to tell them an undeniable truth, or a piece of enigmatic wisdom. "While I cannot say anything about the 'nature' side of the argument regarding yourself, I am very aware of the 'nurture.'"

"No kidding. You were there." He smiled. Sometimes he'd thought Hetty was going to 'nurture' him into an early grave; but without her teaching, her relentless pursuit of excellence, G knew without doubt that he would have been dead long ago. She'd driven him to an almost superhuman point of mastery, and he owed it, and her, his life.

"Not for as long as I'd have liked," she said, shaking her head. "But what I can tell you, with the experience of many years in the field and watching your own career, is that you have nothing to worry about. You are, as you say, a natural. The nurture you gained at my side is nothing to what comes to you by your own instincts and insight."

Something tight in G's chest relaxed and he settled into a joking tone. "So, what you're saying is that I'm a product of both nature _and_ nurture."

She met his humor with her own. "The perfect specimen. Except for your choice in attire, of course."

"Well, you can hardly blame me for that." And he loved that he could see the delight dancing in her eyes that she never showed to anyone but himself.

"Oh?"

"It's wouldn't be right for me to surpass you in _everything_ , would it?" G gave a broad smile. "I have to leave you something to hold over me."

Hetty's face twisted into an expression that usually had junior agents running for their lives, and it was only the years between them that told G she was still playing with him, and was not, in fact, about to shoot him where he stood.

"Is that so?" She lifted her chin and regarded him with such severity he almost started to giggle on the spot.

"Apparently." He could barely keep the glee out of his voice.

"Then you won't mind if I order you to prove your superiority in any task I might name?"

"Bring it on."

"Good. Then pack your bag. You're not sleeping on a couch tonight."

And Callen's glee vanished. He blinked, staring at her. "Is this...did you just manipulate me into having to come sleep at your place instead of the office?"

"Apparently, yes. Now, come, Mister Callen. I fully intend to test your skills at preparing _duck l'orange_ tonight, and in pairing it with the correct wine." She gestured to him to precede her out of the boathouse.

"Oh, come on." He fell into step with her. "Sam's the wine guy. Can't you test him?"

"One never knows what skills one might need to counterfeit in the field," she said. "Oh, and incidentally?"

"Yes?"

She gave him a wicked grin. "You still have a lot to learn if I can entrap you so easily."

He let out a breath and nodded, conceding the point and her victory.

And, privately, hoped he would never truly surpass her in that. Hetty was the only person in the world G wanted to be able to play him like a fiddle, and he would miss it if she couldn't someday.

But apparently, that was not happening any time soon.


	7. S1E7: Pushback

As Callen sat in Alina Rostoff's house, on the bed that had been his for the only good three months to either side of a life in hell, his phone vibrated.

It was a text from Hetty, which said only, "Mister Callen?"

G closed his eyes. Hetty hadn't asked if he was okay. She hadn't asked if he needed anything. She hadn't even asked him how he felt.

She simply opened with a question and let him answer.

Callen typed out a response. "It's just the same as it was."

Then he deleted it.

He tried, "How did you know?"

Then he deleted that, too.

Finally, he typed "Yeah" and sent it before he could think too hard about it.

Hetty would understand.

A moment later, she replied. "Dovecote, 20:00."

G nodded. Of course Hetty would use his return to one of the few homes he'd ever had – instead of places he'd lived which could never be home – to call him back to hers as well.

But right now, he found he didn't want to be alone on a couch. He didn't even want to be on Sam's couch, the last of the surrogate homes he kept even now.

_Besides_ , he thought, _I owe her one for not letting Nate take me off the case_.

Still thinking of Alina, he typed and sent a reply. "Spaseeba."

He could almost hear it in her little-girl voice. " _Say it right. Spa_ _ **seeba**_ _. It means t'ank you._ "

G shut his eyes and just breathed the scent of the house around him. He was already thinking in Russian again. By the time he got to Dovecote, he'd be speaking it as if he'd never spoken anything else.

And Hetty, who always understood him, who always heard what he meant besides what he said, would speak it back to him. She would know why, and what it meant, and she would share with him the gift of the language that was almost all he had left of his little sister.

Hetty's response appeared and he could not help but smile.

"Pazhalooysta."


	8. S1E8: Ambush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day late! When I don't work on Mondays, I tend to forget to do everything else that happens on Mondays.
> 
> Thanks again for the support and interest and welcome from you folks. I really appreciate all you readers in this new-to-me fandom!
> 
> Next week we'll have a few which are more serious. This week, things were a little bit more on the light side.
> 
> Enjoy!

Callen only woke briefly when Sam left, locking the office door behind him, and allowed himself to drift back to sleep now that the building was truly empty. He didn't miss that his partner had spread the blanket from the couch over him, and, in his half-awake state, couldn't decide if he was going to tease Sam about it in the morning or not.

He woke completely later when a small hand landed on his shoulder.

Any other hand in the world would have Callen feigning sleep while he assessed the situation.

This hand, however, had woken him too many times and he trusted it implicitly.

"Hetty," he said before he opened his eyes.

She stood beside him, still dressed for Washington, though it must have been past the middle of the night and onto way too early in the morning.

For one instant, G could see the vulnerability in her, the memory of the agent she had lost and the two agents she could have lost today.

He swallowed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going in, but I'm not sorry for doing it."

She nodded and some of the memory retreated from her eyes. "I know. I wouldn't expect you to be. But never again, Mister Callen. Never again."

G closed his eyes. "I can't promise that and you know it."

"Yes, I suppose I do." She let out a breath and patted his shoulder. "Good night, then."

She turned to go, but Callen rose up on one elbow. "Hetty."

She paused.

"Thank you." He shrugged. "You saved us from 2,700 miles away today. That's a new record."

Hetty chuckled. "Are we not counting St Petersburg anymore?"

"Hey, I thought we agreed not to mention that one again," he replied, pretending to be annoyed.

But Hetty was smiling, and that was what mattered. "You agreed. I did not." She looked back at him, fond and proud in her hidden way. "Sleep well, Mister Callen."

G let himself slide back to the couch and close his eyes, not missing that Hetty was settling at her desk rather than leaving the office once more. "Thank you," he said again quietly.

And if the room had been anything but perfectly still, he would have missed her murmured answer as he fell asleep once more.

"Every time."


	9. S1E9: Random on Purpose

"You row pretty good."

"Thanks." She smiled. "So, all that command chain fuzziness resolved, then?"

G huffed a laugh. "Something like that. Nothing really changes, right? I run the team, and you take care of everything else."

"Oh, some things change," Hetty said. "And not just your desk configuration."

"How so?"

"There was a time you didn't notice."

Callen nodded and smirked. "You really think there was ever a time I didn't know you were running the world behind my back?"

"Oh, Mister Callen." Hetty was grinning. "I think you still don't know how much of the world I could run if I so desired."

"But you're not," he pointed out. "You're here, being an Operations Manager of an OSP office in LA. You could be doing...anything. But you're here." It was a question he had meant to ask since her appearance after he got shot, and only now did he dare. "Why?"

Hetty straightened up and moved past him towards the Ops center. She patted him on the arm as she went.

"If you don't know the answer to that by now, there's no point in my telling you. Now, go help your team with their paperwork."

Callen shook his head as Hetty disappeared into Abby's rather vociferous discussion with her own team.

"I will figure it out eventually!" he called after her.

"Paperwork!" she called back.

G sighed and went to rejoin his team at their new desks.


	10. S1E10: Brimstone

With the scotch mellowing the others, Callen turned back to the toys in the palm tree pot. He was certain they hadn't been anywhere in the building earlier.

He hadn't thought they were still anywhere at all, really.

"Familiar?" Hetty asked.

G glanced up to make sure Sam and Kensi were still across the office – apparently they were either competitively cleaning their desks or gearing up for an arm-wrestling competition.

He looked at Hetty, who appeared to be uncommonly smug.

"Where'd these even come from?" he asked. He ran a hand over the shark, marveling at how small it seemed now.

"Nothing ever goes to waste, Mister Callen," she said. "The best in our business hold onto even the most insignificant things for that rainy day when they may become useful."

G shook his head. "I never even…"

"They were a little young for you at the time." Hetty nodded. "But they made your room look more like a child's room that someone could live in, not just a spare bed in an unfamiliar place."

"Did you seriously buy used toys to make me comfortable in that room, and then keep them all this time?"

"Apparently."

He snorted. "I don't really need a plastic shark and an old school bus to make me feel safe anymore, Hetty."

"No, and you didn't then, either," she replied. "It's all window dressing, Mister Callen. All of it. You should know that by now."

And he did. The shark, the toys, they hadn't been for him to play with when he began living with Hetty; they had been a subtle move in a long game of showing him that he could have roots with her, that his past (or hers, for that matter) was up on a shelf, dusty and unnecessary, with the future spread out before them. And now, here they were again, those same toys that had smiled down from a bookcase that first night in Hetty's care.

But this time, they stood for a different promise.

Not of a future – he didn't need that vow now. Callen was Hetty's for the rest of his life and neither of them needed say a word about it.

Now, the toys were a reminder that safe places existed, and that old secrets never really died.

And that Hetty was still the constant in it all.

"Nate's doing psychological assessments again, isn't he?" Callen asked.

She smiled, pleased. "You'll be fine."

Because she could bring these toys here, and Nate would never know the connection that they hid. She could remind G that it was in the details that trust was created and a story was set.

Hetty was playing a dangerous game again. If Nate knew – if anybody knew – that they shared a past, Callen or Hetty would be reassigned to a different unit. And Nate was one of the people sharp enough to catch them, to see something G didn't want seen, and to be able to piece it together.

Apparently, the presence of the shark meant Hetty truly wasn't worried about it.

"Kind of a mixed message, isn't it? Trust your team, make this a home, but keep up the lie?"

She nodded. "The best messages usually are mixed, dear."

And she went to go stop the arm wrestling before somebody's outbox ended up on the floor.

G shook his head, unable to keep the smile off his face.

He was _never_ going to fully understand that woman.


	11. S1E11: Breach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing yesterday! It was a friend's birthday and things ran late.
> 
> This batch is half and half, dark and light. That's less my doing and more the nature of the episodes themselves.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Nate is terrified of you, you know."

Hetty peered at him. "Is there something about this particular Rembrandt that reminds you of him? Other than the ears, perhaps."

G snorted and had to cover the sound with a cough as half the patrons in the art gallery turned to look at him.

"Actually, it's the jacket."

"I hardly think they called such sophisticated clothing a 'jacket,' Mister Callen." She considered the painting. "However, I see your point. I really must accidentally destroy approximately half of his wardrobe. Covertly, of course."

"I will pretend I never heard anything like that from you."

"That would be wise, or I should be forced to deny you to your face."

G offered her his elbow again and she took it. They wandered from the Nate jacket painting to the next, weaving through the modest crowd at the exhibit.

"But, really. Is there a reason you go out of your way to scare Nate?"

"Of course there is."

Callen waited for several seconds of silence before asking, "And are you going to tell me?"

"I wasn't planning on it, no."

G stared at the current work of art without really seeing it, thinking. "Sam used to do that to Dom, as a way to toughen him up. Make him ready to be in the field."

"I assure you, that is not what I am doing." Hetty tugged his arm, pulling towards another painting.

"No." G looked at her, the gallery disappearing around him. "You're...trying to make it easier for him to stand up to us, aren't you?"

"Whatever gave you that impression?" She didn't even bother to look at him.

"It's basic transference. You upset Nate, but he can't challenge you directly, so he challenges me or Sam or Kensi instead. And eventually, he will be able to challenge you."

Hetty smiled. "Not just me, Mister Callen."

"Who, then? Director Vance? SecNav?"

Now she gave him a proud, measuring look. "If necessary."

"So...you didn't just send him on a vacation because he's been working too hard. You did it so he would have to go out into the world and interact with strangers. So he could practice standing up to them, too." G blinked at her. "You're getting him ready to be an agent."

"Not yet," she said, shaking her head. "Not for a while. But it isn't training that Nate needs. It's confidence. And practice standing up without flinching under enemy fire."

"You're hardly an enemy, Hetty."

"And that is why it won't be any time soon that we send Nate out anywhere he might be in danger." She patted his hand. "But I'm pleased you were worried."

"I wasn't worried." Even G knew he retreated from that one too quickly, and Hetty just shook her head at him.

"He's a member of your team. You're supposed to be worried. But not right now. Today is just the art of Rembrandt and the sunshine and finding a few more roses to smell."

"So," he smirked, "does that mean you're not going to be my wingman?"

"Mister Callen." She looked at him reprovingly. "If you truly desired my help, I could get you any girl you wanted of the current selection and we both know it. Now stop being so silly and move along. The next gallery is waiting and I haven't got all day."

G laughed. It was true that he was getting all sorts of appreciative looks from young women, many of whom glanced to Hetty and back to himself and probably assumed something about a dutiful son and how sweet and considerate he was. If he really wanted to make a connection tonight, he had no doubt he could manage it even without Hetty's intervention.

But right then, G realized he wanted nothing more than to go look at more paintings with Hetty.

"Let's see if we can find one that looks like Eric."


	12. S1E12: Past Lives

Sam was taking a turn singing something from the hip-hop section of the karaoke catalogue, and, if G were honest, he was killing it. The whole room was rocking along with the beat, Kensi and Eric were dancing in their seats, and Nate was looking increasingly flustered about having to sing next.

He'd be doubly flustered when he found out Callen had paid the karaoke guy $20 to swap whatever Nate picked for something from the Beach Boys.

Callen leaned over to where Hetty was watching the proceedings with the same calm air of control she had presiding over the office.

"Did you know?" he asked quietly. "That Michael wasn't…?"

"Yes, Mister Callen. I knew."

"Were you going to tell me?"

"Only if it became necessary." She gave him a tiny shrug. "I had faith that your honesty would be sufficient. Either that or your charm, which never seems to fail you, though I can't say why."

G rocked back in mock hurt. "Hetty! Now, that's just cruel!"

"Perhaps." She saluted him with her drink. "But nonetheless, all is well again, I assume?"

He let out a breath as Sam finished, bowing to applause. "Yeah. It's all good."

The karaoke guy waved Nate forward and handed him the mic, not so much as winking at Callen as he did so.

The screen behind Nate lit up bright blue with the title "California Girls."

Kensi practically exploded laughing. Sam and Eric high-fived and both looked back at G who waved them off, watching Nate try to talk to the karaoke guy before the song got going.

"Nate!" Hetty called. "You should always expect the unexpected! Now sing!"

And Nate, red-faced and glaring a promise of murder and extra debriefings at Callen, surrendered.

Though he was mostly drowned out by Sam's guffawing and Eric yelling additional lines and inserts throughout the track and Kensi threatening them both if they kept up the commentary. On the plus side, it was getting them a lot of attention from the ladies at the next table.

Sometime in the middle of what had become an inadvertent singalong, Hetty leaned over to Callen. "The thing is, so much of what we do isn't real. But it can be real, if we choose to make it so. Someday, you might have to make a choice. I hope, when that day comes, you're ready."

Callen let out a breath. "I'm sure if that day comes, you won't let me just walk away."

"Oh, no, Mister Callen. It's always been your decision. All of it from the start. All this illusion, it's yours to maintain or fold."

"Yeah." He sighed. "But the illusion got me this far. So I'm okay with it for now."

She smiled at him. "As am I."

Nate finished and abandoned the stage as quickly as possible, going straight for his drink and trying desperately to avoid eye-contact with anyone else. Callen was moving to go slap him on the shoulder (and to pay the karaoke guy again to program Nate with Backstreet Boys for round two) when Hetty passed him, climbing up to the stage.

"I dedicate this song," she said, not into the mic, but just so they could hear, "to a person whose trust I find most precious."

Callen couldn't help but feel warm through every note of Hetty's rendition of "It's Only a Paper Moon."


	13. S1E13: Missing

Callen posted the alert about Dom to the Interpol archive and seriously considered throwing his computer, the desk, maybe everything in range across the room.

Someone had taken Dom. _Taken_ him, and they had lost him.

Of all the losses in his career, the sacrifices he'd made, the people he'd seen killed, none of it compared to this. It felt like it woke up an old pain in his heart, one that lived in the shadow of memory long gone. He'd heard once that the reason grief was so powerful an emotion was that the experience of grief triggered all past memory of grief in the human brain, so every loss was its own sorrow on top of every loss that had come before.

Right now, Callen believed it. He had never been so close to drowning.

Hetty appeared in his peripheral vision, regarding him with eyes he couldn't read for once. Then she moved back to her desk.

A moment later, Sam came down from his punching bag, sweating and breathing heavily. Sam's eyes were haunted.

G would have taken five bullets again to take that look out of Sam's eyes, Hetty's eyes.

"Come on, G." Sam sounded as though the words hurt to say. "Let's go."

G couldn't place it. He knew he was probably staring like an idiot at his partner, and he couldn't bother to care.

"You're coming home with me tonight. Sleeping where…"

Callen heard the rest. _Where I can keep an eye on you. Where I know you're safe._

He leaned around Sam. Hetty was seated at her desk, but she was watching him closely. She gave him a nod.

And he understood.

" _We all deal with things in our own way, don't we?_ "

Right now, he needed to find a way to deal, and Sam needed to take care of someone...and maybe Hetty needed to put G somewhere she knew he would be protected so she could do whatever it was she did; and whatever it was, G knew she would do it alone. This was a tiny butterfly bandage on a gaping wound, but it was all she could offer him, all she could give either of them.

None of them could make this right. But they had to keep going.

Callen gulped and nodded. He looked up into Sam's anguished expression. "Okay. Thanks, Sam."

Sam nodded. He noticed that Sam didn't move more than a few inches from his side while he grabbed his things. That Sam was on full alert, looking for threats behind the coffee makers and inside the lockers and in the shadows crossing the bullpen.

And G realized he would feel better if he had something he could protect right now, too. Some _one_ he could protect.

Hetty didn't need him as much as Sam did.

Callen met her eyes as they passed in silence. He returned her nod.

_I'll look out for him._

He could read her answer in every line of her face.

_Take care of yourself, too. You're a survivor. I'm trusting you to survive._

G put her trust into his heart and held it there, a weight and a reassurance all at once, and vowed to do just that. If the only thing he could do for his team now was to survive, to be strong, to protect them, to lead – then he would not let them down.

But even he knew he couldn't save them from the loss of Dom.


	14. S1E14: LD50

Thinking of his conversation with Hetty over tea, G threw back the blanket from the couch and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Everyone was gone, and he should have been sleeping – instincts about resting when he could were still strong, of course – but something was bothering him.

" _So, when the time comes, as you put it, there's something you can do. You can smother me with a pillow_."

Cold bile dumped into his stomach at the very thought.

But G Callen owed Hetty literally everything. And he could imagine nothing worse for himself, either, than betraying what he had bled and killed for. If it was him, if his mind was going, he would ask for the same. He would beg anyone he could trust to keep him from committing treason at the end.

He ambled over to Hetty's office.

There was a piece of paper on her desk that hadn't been there before.

"I meant every word."

G's hand started to shake as he plucked a pen from Hetty's desk.

It was dark – that must be the reason his handwriting was so uncertain as he wrote in the blank space below her pristine, steady script.

"I promise."

The instant he finished writing the words, he felt cold and shaky, almost like he was going into shock.

_I wonder what Nate would make of that._

Callen decided he didn't really need to sleep after all, and took himself off to the gym.

Four hours of hard work later, he was too tired even to crawl back to his couch to sleep. He managed to shower and get dressed in his spare set of workout clothes off before he laid down on his stomach on a bench in the locker room and fell asleep.

"Ahem."

G blinked, sore, and only avoided rolling off the bench to crash on the floor by a sudden steadying hand on his side. He flopped his head over, though he didn't need to see to know who had woken him.

"Hetty?"

The lines of her favorite tan suit were crisp and even. "As a general rule, I admire your ability to sleep anywhere, Mister Callen, but I believe this may be pushing it."

He was stiff and uncomfortable and his muscles were screaming, but the only thing he managed to say was, "Are you really supposed to be in here?"

She gave him a pitying look over her glasses. "This is _my_ building, Mister Callen. I can be wherever I please. It's hardly the first men's room I've set foot in."

He couldn't come up with a good response for that. He managed to push himself up and get to his feet without losing too much dignity, and he was grateful he'd actually slipped back into his sweatpants – he did not have the brain power to worry about dropping a towel on top of everything else.

"Mister Callen." Hetty's hands were loose at her sides, and she looked as put together as ever, but there was something in her eyes he didn't recognize. "I believe neither one of us slept particularly well last night."

"What was your first clue?"

She let that slide. "I don't know if it will ease your mind any, but nonetheless."

She held out a hand.

G accepted it, sensing the gravity of the situation in her grip on his fingers.

"Should it be needed, I would thank you to make my end painless and without compromising national security. It is not an easy thing I ask of you." She never looked away from him, but she did pause to swallow. "It is something I ask only because there are precious few others I could trust with such an act."

He felt like the breath had been taken from his very chest. "I...I know."

"But I give you my word." And the steel was back in her eyes. "If I have any say over it, I will do the job for you myself. Not out of despair, but because I never wish to put you in that position. However, it is always wise to have contingencies in place."

Callen shut his eyes and squeezed her hand too tight. He just couldn't stand her casual comfort with the entire topic. Even if it made sense. Even if it was logical. He just couldn't. "Don't. Please." He almost choked on the words. "I...I would rather…"

"Rather place your sword on my throat than find me having done so myself?" Her words were soft and very warm. "Thank you, my boy. But still. Let an old woman have her dignity and her right to choose, even at the end."

G forced himself to open his eyes. "But...if you can't choose anymore…"

"Then I ask you to keep your promise, Mister Callen."

G just didn't know how it was so easy for her to say, so easy for her to ask of him. Her gaze was steady and her grip unwavering.

She was so much stronger than he would ever be.

All he could do was nod.

Hetty tugged on his hand and Callen bent down. To his surprise, she gripped his shoulder and gave him a half-hug.

"You are a braver man than you know, G Callen. And I am so very proud of you."

G closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on her shoulder. "Don't...don't let it happen any time soon. Okay, Hetty?"

"Oh, Mister Callen. Have no fear. You've many more years to wish to strangle me before it becomes a risk." And she put an arm around his head.

Callen could count the number of times she had actually held him in her arms off the top of his head. Even fewer was the number of times he had held her back.

This morning, with pre-dawn light filtering in the smoky windows above, he wrapped his arms around her and held on as if he would never let go.

He couldn't tell her he would never be ready for such a thing to happen.

He couldn't tell her he would never forgive himself if he had to do it, that he might not be able to keep from eating his gun if it came to that.

He couldn't tell her a word about the roiling feelings swamping his heart.

Hetty held him, and he knew she heard it all anyway.


	15. S1E15: The Bank Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all.
> 
> I had a tough weekend, so I don't yet have the energy to reply to all your fabulous comments as you deserve. So I'll have to catch up later this week or next Monday. Sorry for that. But here are the next 3 chapters.
> 
> Enjoy!

Between the halves of the Lakers-Knicks game, Callen pulled out his phone while Sam went for more beer to send a text.

"You don't have a warehouse."

Within a minute, the response came back. "Are you certain about that?"

G laughed and sent back, "Yeah. I'm sure."

His phone rang. The arena was noisy, but he could still hear the wry amusement in her voice clearly.

"You don't know actually everything about me, Mister Callen."

"No, but I know your habits. And your places."

"Not all of them."

He sighed. She was probably right. He might go his entire life and dedicate it to nothing but unraveling hers, and it still might not be enough.

However, that was no reason to admit defeat.

"Well, it's easier on us both if you just tell me. Otherwise, I'm just going to have to go looking."

He could almost hear her scowl. "Ten o'clock tomorrow morning, then, Mister Callen. I expect you to buy lunch, and I do hope your car has been cleaned recently."

He smiled. "How recently is recently?"

"Apparently not recently enough. Car cleaned, and no more whining from you when I find out your secrets in return."

"You know I can't promise that."

"Good night, Mister Callen." And she hung up.

Sam reappeared with a pair of drinks and a huge pile of nachos, somehow managing to carry it all without smearing so much as a drip of cheese on his shirt.

G relieved him of his burden and started in on the nachos while Sam got back into his seat.

"So, after this, wanna check out that new steak joint?"

G shook his head. "Sorry. After the game, I've got to pack it in for an early night. Apparently I'm cleaning my car for a morning date with Hetty."

Sam's eyes went comically wide. "What kind of special punishment did you get, and what exactly did you do to deserve it?"

"Oh, you know." G sat back as the arena started to settle for the second half. "Poking my nose into classified business. The usual."

"Someday she's gonna shoot you, and I'm not going to do a thing to stop her," Sam told him.

Callen laughed. "If she does, I guarantee I'll deserve it."


	16. S1E16: Chinatown

The day after the Calvin Lee case, G dropped a fortune cookie on Hetty's desk. In spite of the fact that he knew how much she detested the things.

"Dry, plasticky, flavorless, egg-carton dough," she said with disgust the first morning. She didn't even rip open the package holding the offensive cookie; instead, she smashed it with the heel of her hand and threw it away.

The second morning, she swore in Russian before crushing it under her boot.

The third, she threw it directly at Callen's head and glared at him for the entire day's briefing.

"What does Hetty have against fortune cookies?" Eric asked afterwards. "I mean, they're not the finest of desserts, but they have that nice...blandness after a meal of Chinese food."

"They're not really Chinese," Sam pointed out. "They're an American invention. It's not even cultural appropriation, since they were never cultural to begin with."

"I kinda like them," Kensi said. "Though you can't necessarily tell the difference between the cookie and the paper inside."

Nate looked sideways at Callen. "Why do you keep giving them to Hetty?"

He just shrugged. "Seems like the thing to do."

The fourth morning, Hetty marched it over to where G sat at his desk, waiting with an anticipatory grin. She clapped her hands together, smashing the cookie between them, and dropped it, crumbs spilling out of the popped bag, into his lap.

"Give it up, man." Sam shook his head when she was gone. "Or she's going to do something awful, and I don't want to pick up the pieces when you find out what."

On Friday, the fifth morning of what we becoming known around the office as The Fortune Cookie Stalemate (Eric had come up with it, thought it a delightful pun, and nobody with sense said it within Hetty's hearing), G carried the last cookie to her himself.

"I know, I know." He held up his hands after he set it down on her desk while she glared murder at him. "But...just this once."

Still glaring, she picked it up. "Oh, very well. But only for you, Mister Callen. And I have no intention of eating the awful thing."

"Wouldn't expect you to."

Hetty opened the package and snapped the cookie in two, pulling out the little paper inside.

She read it aloud. "Your hands heal more wounds than those one can see. Know that many a heart beats more easily for your efforts."

She blinked.

"Mister Callen...that's lovely."

He gave a shrug. "Just wanted to thank you for patching me up the other night. That's all."

"Well." She smiled at him. "You're welcome. And I'm sorry for treating your gift so poorly."

"You're forgiven."

Callen made his way back to his desk, smiling.

Hetty was also smiling as she threw the cookie and wrapper away. She was about to place the fortune in her desk when she noticed writing on the other side.

It said, "The longest journey begins with a single step. However, in your case, it might take two or three."

" _MISTER CALLEN, COME HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT!"_

Every single person in the office ran for their lives.


	17. S1E17: Full Throttle

G had to give the woman credit. "Funny Traffic School" was the perfect revenge for the thing with the fortune cookie. That took deviousness and a truly cruel sense of humor.

But getting Eric to exchange his scores with someone else to ensure he failed? That was just unfair.

Not to mention annoying.

G was half-tempted to drop the whole alias with the bad driving record and come up with a new one rather than fix the mess, but that would also mean admitting defeat. And while he was willing to surrender when it was tactically necessary or strategically sound, giving in to Hetty never ended well.

However, he _had_ been trained by the best.

_When an enemy is expecting a frontal attack, do anything but._

And the house called Briar Patch had a riding lawnmower.

The next morning, Callen didn't even wait for Hetty to call him into her office. He went straight there and sat himself in the chair. She was typing on her laptop, and pretended to ignore him.

"Come on," he said at last. "We good?"

"Mister Callen, if you thought that your...activities...would induce me to think better of your driving skills, you are sorely mistaken."

He laughed. "I'd like to see anybody do that in a car."

"I'd like to see you do something in a car that doesn't trigger an LAPD traffic investigation," she shot back.

"Eric can fix this in five minutes. Just...give him the word and let me get back to focusing on my actual job." G kept the desperation out of his voice, but she knew how to listen it anyway.

Hetty peered at him over the laptop screen in a way that made G feel a bit like a bug she was considering squashing.

"Under one condition."

"Anything." At this point, Callen would pretty much agree to whatever Hetty asked if it meant he could stop having to deal with this traffic stuff and go back to the way things were supposed to be. And, while could still burn the alias if he had to, he really didn't want to. Steven Walinski had a whole reputation built up that made Thursday nights way more interesting any time he wasn't working a case.

"You must undo that dreadful thing you did last night in its entirety. And I want you to show the same care and consideration to every other relevant location before next week."

Callen sighed. The lawn at Dovecote was huge. And it didn't have a riding lawn mower.

But she'd given him a whole weekend, and she hadn't said he couldn't borrow the one from Briar Patch.

"Deal."

"Also." She finished whatever she had been typing and picked up a scrap of paper, which she handed across to him. "Please review the correct grammatical construction of the future imperfect tense before the next time I have to send you to Croatia. If you are going to make the attempt to plead your case, it will go much better if you do so accurately."

"Thanks, Hetty."

Now he just had to explain to Sam that he wouldn't be coming around this weekend because he had to mow a Morse code pattern out of a lawn.

As he was leaving, he paused. Turned back. "Out of curiosity."

"Yes, Mister Callen?"

"How long did it take you to…?"

"Less time than it took you to pick the lock on the shed, Mister Callen. Though the final salutation was much appreciated, if inexpertly executed."

He smiled. "Don't ever change, Hetty."

"Ne brinite."

"Me? Worry about you? Never."

And they both knew the truth well enough to let this lie stand.


	18. S1E18: Blood Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, next week will be the end of season 1. Lots of ground to cover between now and then, though. The last episode in this week's arc is Found, and one of my early favorites to write.
> 
> The next 2 weeks might be a little odd – I'll be traveling and away from my normal computer. I'll update if and when I can, though. Otherwise, by the first Monday in March, we'll be caught up.
> 
> Here we go! Enjoy!

Callen turned in his report on the Gunny Dobbs case a full day early, which was enough to raise red flags all the way to Camp Pendleton. He also had the good sense to run before Hetty could ask him about it, claiming a night off with Sam.

Sam didn't know a thing about it, but he saw the holy glee in his partner's eyes and knew when to get clear before another Hetty explosion.

The office was only just calming down after the Fortune Cookie Stalemate, after all.

"So, what did you do?" Sam asked as they got into the Challenger and Sam pulled away from the building a little too hastily.

"Oh, nothing."

"Come on, G. You gotta tell me."

Callen looked out the window with overt casualness. "Ever find yourself doodling in the margins when you're thinking?"

"No. That's something nine-year-old girls do."

G laughed. "Well, anyway. I forgot to erase it this time and thought she might like it."

"I wish I hadn't give you a ride. Now she's gonna kill me, too."

"She won't kill you, Sam." Callen grinned. "If she kills both of us, that leaves Kensi with no backup except Nate."

"Oh. Good point. Then I promise to come see you in the hospital."

"Deal."

At her desk, Hetty opened the file from Callen almost cautiously. When it came to his sense of humor and impropriety, there was truly no telling what he might do.

On the third page of the report, she found a little drawing.

It took her a moment to figure it out – apparently Mister Callen was no art prodigy. Which she knew, of course. But it was different to see it now than it had been when she had gained access to middle school homework assignments.

And yet, there was something charming in the childish scribble of a triangular body, a too-round head, and heavy glasses. The wings were a bit much, and seemed to sprout directly from a scarf or maybe it was supposed to be a cravat. But the halo was there, almost hidden by the text of the nearest paragraph.

Hetty remembered well what he had said to her.

_I have a guardian angel. She's tiny, but very tough._

Hetty smiled in spite of herself. "Indeed you do, Mister Callen."

She turned the page to find a repeat of the drawing of the little triangular angel, this time in a field of poppy flowers.

Hetty began to have a sinking feeling.

She turned one more page and let out an aggrieved noise.

The little angel was standing on top of a pile of bodies all marked with the Russian flag on their uniforms. The halo appeared to be dripping, and the wings had changed from some kind of scarf to something more like helicopter blades.

Pulling out her black pen, Hetty carefully redacted the entire scene, then both preceding angels, just in case. Then she redacted a few unimportant lines throughout the document. Now it looked like something she could send to Director Vance and not have to answer too many odd questions.

She added it to her own file, shaking her head.

_That boy will never truly grow up._

_Good._


	19. S1E19: Hand-to-Hand

Callen was staring at his mostly-empty refrigerator when his phone rang.

His adrenaline spiked the instant he saw it was Hetty. She rarely called without texting first – unless it was important. Or bad.

"What's wrong?" he answered, slamming the refrigerator and striding for his jacket. "Do I need to come in hot?"

"Calm down, please, Mister Callen," she said. "This is not an emergency."

That brought him to a full stop in the middle of a half-furnished, barely-lived-in apartment.

"What's going on? You don't call unless something's up. Eric calls."

"Well, this is between you and I. You as team leader, I as your Operations Manager."

The ebbing adrenaline in his system made G sigh. "Couldn't we do this tomorrow?"

"I'm afraid not. I've just had a call from Director Vance. He's given me some rather specific instructions."

"Oh, great."

"Mister Callen, what do you think of Detective Deeks?"

G blinked. "Uh, he's a good operator. And he ran in to help Sam even against guys two weight classes heavier. Kensi's going to kill him if he keeps trying to hit on her, though."

Hetty chuckled. "Do you think you could work with him?"

"Me?"

"It's your team, Mister Callen. Director Vance wants us to have an 'in' at LAPD. I know what I think is best, but if you can't treat Detective Deeks as a full member of your team, there's no point in making the attempt and putting everyone at risk the next time a case goes poorly."

G would have been peering at her if she were in front of him. "Couldn't you just hire him? You don't really need my approval."

"No, I do not. But I do need you to be on board."

Callen huffed a laugh. "You really like this guy, don't you?"

"Let's just say...I think he'll fit in nicely."

He was surprised. That was high praise from Hetty. That alone was enough to make up his mind.

"Okay. I assume I know nothing until it officially happens?"

"That is generally the safest assumption, yes."

He drew in a breath. "Hetty...is this to try to help us deal with Dom?"

"Deal with? No." He could hear the weight in her voice. "But perhaps it will give the team the balance it has lacked without him. And you should know that Mister Deeks has an unusual background for LAPD. He may have his own insights into Dom's case. One never knows what threads could lead us to our missing agent."

"Right."

"Then if you've no other objections, I think I'll go acquire us another team member."

G smiled. "Poor guy has no idea what he's in for, does he?"

"Did any of you?"

"No, not really." Callen shook his head. "Thanks for asking my opinion, though, Hetty. I appreciate it."

"And I appreciate your trust, Mister Callen. I'll see you in the morning."

G ended the call and chuckled. "Can't wait to see what Kensi says about _this_."


	20. S1E20: Fame

The whole conversation was code, because of course it was.

_When did G Callen become a blip on your radar?_

They both knew the answer to that was not one that could be spoken in the office. Not and allow them to keep working together without having to answer some questions by Director Vance which, frankly, neither of them cared to address.

When G Callen appeared in Hetty's life was not under discussion.

It was still the issue of Marty Deeks.

_Kiev_. The mission with the analyst who wanted to be an agent, but was refused because of politics.

Was Deeks someone Hetty couldn't get another way because of something in his past?

_Houston_. The case had revolved around an unknown heir to a mafia family who could be turned as an asset before falling into the underworld.

Was Deeks connected to someone powerful, or dangerous, and they intended to use that connection?

_Bogota_. That fiasco had been mainly a cleanup after an agent went on a rampage trying to find and kill the person who murdered their partner in cold blood.

Did Deeks have something in his past that Hetty felt should be revenged, and such access would only come through the opportunities and resources of NCIS?

_Jersey City._ The job Callen remembered as the one where he lost a bet to a superior and had to complete the entire job with the worst partner the man could find.

Did Hetty get stuck with Deeks because she owed a favor to the LA Chief of Detectives, and it was a convenient way to get rid of him?

Her answer surprised him.

_Peking._

_You mean Beijing._

A mission Hetty had undertaken entirely willingly, though every analyst and director who got wind of it told her not to go. A mission that was doomed to fail because it simply could not be done.

And, of course, Hetty had accomplished it flawlessly. It was a legendary op, told in whispered stories and snatched conversations where superiors couldn't hear; it had taken G a decade to learn that it was true, and that it was Hetty.

Actually, neither of those things had surprised him at all.

Callen had one of those as well, a few decades later, in the same city. Apparently Beijing was the destination for the impossible, the unworkable, which turned out to be both critical and exemplary.

It almost made G want to give up being team leader.

_It was Jersey City, wasn't it?_

It would be so much easier if Hetty had just lost a bet. Whatever Hetty saw in him, whatever she knew about him, this wasn't a move undertaken thoughtlessly or without all the background knowledge necessary.

This was a move she took because it was the only way to success, no matter how difficult.

Callen accepted the cup of tea gratefully. He was going to need it.


	21. S1E21: Found

She knew the instant he entered the house. Not because he was foolish enough to make a sound, but because she could feel the very shift in the air he brought with him.

How exactly he always knew which house she was using when, she'd never truly identified. Perhaps it was just another of his inborn gifts, the things that made him the finest agent she had ever known.

Hetty knew she should go to him. She should unwrap from the comforter pulled from her bed, stand strong and steady, and be what he needed again. As she always did. As she had sworn she always would.

She would be there to support and watch over G Callen to the end.

But today she had failed him.

Today, her agents had been required to watch Dom Vail be carted away under a sheet. Blood-soaked, broken, grieving, they had been forced to call Director Vance, to explain the situation.

Bless Leon for all time – he took over from there. He directed the authorities, managed the arrangements, and even offered to speak to Dom's parents directly. He did all the things Hetty should have done herself, but she was not there.

Hetty had watched her agent die on Eric's screens, and she had abandoned her post.

_Treason_ , her heart whispered. Not to country, but to the people who were hers.

The only mysterious thing was that it had taken Callen so long to come find her.

Now she heard his step on the stair. He could move as soundlessly as the night if he wished, but he was wise enough to know when not to rouse her instincts. To sneak up on a person whose life had been so regularly in danger was not a way to ensure one remained free from bullet holes. But there was something in his step…

Ah. He had changed. The pants sounded like sweatpants, not jeans, so they were not his own.

Sam.

Of course.

As the team leader he was, he had seen to Sam. He had probably even sent Nate to Kensi and gotten Eric settled as well. He had looked to the pains of everyone but himself.

And he was still doing it.

Oh, she ached for his powerful heart. A man who could live through 37 foster homes and countless cold institutions, who could be beaten and starved, left without affection, who could be treated worse than a dog by the people who were supposed to care for him – how he could still love so very much, how he could still care so very deeply, it was a mystery that would never be solved. All of her agents were full of love – it was part of what made them special and set them apart.

And now their hearts were broken.

She should put on her proud face and open her door to the man who was waiting outside it. She should go and support him as he had supported so many others.

But she had never felt so very _tired_.

"Hetty?"

His voice was low and soft, and she could hear the mix of the boy he had been and the man he had become in its anguished tones. He was in such pain himself, but he was still so worried for her.

She couldn't leave him with no answer.

"I'm...I'm all right."

He made a sound that was no laugh. "No, you're not. Please?"

She closed her eyes.

He must have taken her silence for permission, for he opened the door.

The pants didn't fit him well at all, and the shirt was one of Sam's and hung off his shoulders oddly. His skin looked pink, as if he had stood under scalding water, scrubbing and scrubbing until the blood fell away.

But, in their business, it never truly did.

She meant to say something to him, something profound, something meaningful. She extended a hand to him and opened her mouth, hoping the words would come to her by some miracle and she could be what he needed once more, could be what he _deserved_.

All that came out was a low, wordless, sad sound.

In an instant, he was beside her chair, kneeling at her feet as if she were a queen. But his arms were around her and his head was pressed against her arm and he was shaking as badly as she.

Hetty held him as tightly as she could, and cried. Cried for Dom, for the team, for a life that should never have been lost.

And that brilliant, wonderful boy held her in return, and cried as well.

They didn't speak. There were no words for their grief.

The morning would come and find Hetty put in her own bed like a child, and G wrapped in her blanket on the chair he had lifted her from. They would move silently through breakfast, silently through a world that had lost a light they could never replace. There would be much to do, the bureaucratic work of death and the emotional work of rebuilding a team which had been shattered.

And throughout that first morning, Hetty would find in herself the same exhaustion that kept her from answering Callen, and it would eat at her. Her failure, the loss – they would dig into her heart, and from them would come a decision not made in reason, but in grief.

But that silent night was theirs. When the world was dark and full of pain, Hetty Lange found that she was not entirely alone. There was a strong shoulder beside her, and a gentle hand to hold hers through the storm.

Whatever many failures she had suffered, in that silence Hetty was reminded that her magnificent G Callen could never be one of them.


	22. S1E22: Hunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, everyone! I really didn't mean to miss the last 2 weeks. I was traveling to see family and driving a few thousand miles across the country to do it. I did actually have my laptop, but what I didn't have was time. So this week you'll get the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2. Still, hopefully this is the last time I'll have to do so much uploading at one time!
> 
> Enjoy!

G Callen had been fifteen years old when he finally broke free of the foster system thanks to running away and ending up in juvie. Which he then followed up by, of course, escaping custody, stealing a car, and making a run for it. Which ended him on a curb outside a random house – he never did learn whose, or how exactly Hetty knew to find him there.

But find him she did.

She found him, took him out of the foster system for good, cleared up his record, and gave him a home. And then she taught him new skills, opened up his mind to the world, and set him on the path that had guided him ever since. From that moment on, Callen owed her too many debts to name.

He already knew he would spend a lifetime paying them back – and today was one of those days.

Callen wasn't about to let her end her career like this, no matter what. Dom wouldn't have wanted her to resign on his behalf, and G himself didn't want to do this without her anymore. Macy had been a fine Operations Manager, but Hetty was special. She had always been special.

And he intended to remind her of it. Right this minute, before she packed away even one more book.

"You know, you can take the kid off the street but, uh…"

Any person within hearing would assume the end of the line had to do with taking the street out of the kid. That Callen's history had given him light fingers, and it was a skill he had never lost.

There wasn't anyone within earshot, but even then they couldn't have guessed the truth.

When Callen was seventeen, Hetty had been obliged to leave him with a trusted friend – someone Callen found out much later was a retired operative – while she took a two-month trip abroad. It wasn't the first time it happened in their time together between when she removed him from the foster care system and when he entered the service of the country, and it wouldn't be the last, but this one was of particular note.

Every other time before then, upon Hetty's return to Los Angeles, she had spent a night in one of her other homes, away from him, before retrieving him from his temporary guardian. He knew she did it – she even told him about it. It was partially so that she could ensure that no harm had followed her from the recent mission before she put him in danger, partially so she could adjust to the time difference in peace, and partially because, as she told him much later, a little solitude was sometimes necessary in the aftermath of the kind of missions people in their line of work were given.

This time, Hetty had been gone a week longer than scheduled, G Callen was seventeen and learning his own tradecraft, and he was tired of being protected.

She had retreated to the Ancora house, the quiet of the beach soothing after such a tense mission in Cairo. She had just unpacked her bag and was beginning to make tea when there came a sound at the back door.

Hetty had drawn her gun and waited.

The door had popped open, revealing G pocketing a spare key.

"Mister Callen." She had put her gun away and sighed. "Someday, you're going to get shot doing that."

"Not by you," he had said, full of trust. He smiled. "Welcome back."

"Thank you." She had returned to making tea, enough for two this time. "How did you know I'd come here?"

"I followed you." But he was fidgeting. It was a habit that was proving very hard to break.

"I would have noticed being tailed. Try again."

"I put a bug in your luggage."

"You haven't the equipment. The truth this time, please."

"I...guessed."

That had won him a smile. "Very good, Mister Callen. Your instincts serve you well. However, I would like to point out that you do not have a key for this house. I changed the locks only a few months ago."

"You did," he had said, sitting down at the table, "but I copied all your keys right before you left this time."

She had turned to him, surprised. "How…?"

He had shrugged.

"Oh well." She had given him a smile and pulled some cheese from the refrigerator. "I suppose you can take the kid off the streets…"

"And then he's going to follow you home," Callen had finished.

She had blinked at him.

G had shrugged again. "Pretty much? Even if I become the greatest agent in the world, I'm still going to go where you go. Even if you retire. There's no island anywhere on earth I can't follow you if I try hard enough."

She had been rather touched and swallowed quickly to hide it. "And why would you do that?"

"Because you gave me a home. I always want to be able to come home sometimes."

And that simple answer was her undoing when he recalled it to her mind over a box of books in an office she didn't want anymore some years of heartache later.

"You know, you can take the kid off the street but, uh…"

Now, as he faced her across a half-packed desk, he smirked. He had her and he knew it.

"Did I mention the canasta?"

Hetty sighed and reached for a glass. But the look she gave him spoke volumes. And he spoke back just the same as he poured her drink.

_Message received. If I go, you will follow me, won't you?_

_Anywhere. To the ends of the earth, if I have to._

_I can't let you do that._

_I can't let you, either._

"Oh, hell. Better make it a double."

So he did.


	23. S1E23: Burned

It was the silence in the park, while they waited for the crowd to clear so Callen could call Eric with the plan, that said the most.

Hetty hadn't asked if he was armed – she knew he would be.

She hadn't asked if he was hurt – she knew it didn't matter right now.

In return, Callen hadn't asked if anyone else was hurt – he knew she would already have said so if they were.

The threat to NCIS was a wound all in itself, anyway.

A group of people were walking by, and it looked strange for the pair of them to be sitting in silence, so Callen spoke up.

"You're putting a lot of faith in me right now. More than I have in myself."

"I'm aware of that," she replied. "But my faith in you has yet to be wrong."

"Even if I'm about to rip off the bandage and possibly expose us even farther to danger?"

She gave him a smile. "Even if you were going to march into our house and blow it sky high. You're the best at what you do. You're also the only one who has had contact with our new adversary. No one can get a better read on him than you. So if this is the course of action you believe is necessary, I will support it."

He nodded, too focused to bother feeling grateful. Later, he would be. Now, he had to be on the job. He had to be an agent, not a man with a heart that could fear and doubt.

She patted his knee. "We'll talk some more later. I think this is your chance. Call Mister Beale and let's put an end to this mess."

G nodded and lifted the phone.

Time to get back in the game.


	24. S1E24: Callen, G

"I know my family, Mister Callen. Believe me when I say sometimes I envy you not knowing yours."

It hurt, those words. It was a wound Hetty was always careful not to prod, and now she was driving salt and stones into it. It surprised him, and it ached like healing bullet wounds. Like holes torn through him, where there would forever be a void.

"I'm standing you down."

His world was spinning. First denied by Hetty, now losing his position…

"For one day. Use it wisely."

She handed him a piece of paper.

And the spinning stopped, the earth steadied under his feet. The pain retreated. Even before he unfolded it, he knew it was what he needed.

And there was an unspoken apology in Hetty's eyes as well.

Callen accepted both.

The piece of paper had a name, an address for the cemetary, and even visiting hours. It was an extra level of consideration that most others would have omitted, but Hetty never would. Because Hetty understood the value of what she was giving him. She understood that it was everything that mattered all in one tiny piece of information.

Beneath that was written a phrase he hadn't seen in years. It was a language he didn't speak, but Hetty did, and she had taught him a few bits and pieces along the way. Including what she told him was the only line that truly mattered in any language.

" _Family is whoever you hold in your heart._ "

Callen's fingers didn't quite shake, and he didn't quite crush the paper in his hands, but only because he shoved it into his pocket.

He was half-tempted to turn back around and say something, anything to her. "Thank you," maybe. Or "You're my family, too." Or even "I'm sorry for worrying you."

He drew in a deep breath.

He would go to Amy first. Hetty would understand, and he wouldn't be able to think about anything else until he saw the place where his sister – his _sister –_ was laid to rest. He could barely keep his feet going in any direction that didn't lead to her.

But when that was answered, when he could think again, he could be himself again.

His phone buzzed.

It was a text from Hetty from across the room.

"Leave now. Traffic."

He turned and looked at her.

Hetty was not even facing in his direction, and her phone was nowhere in sight.

Another text arrived.

"Dinner. 9pm. Greek Palace."

She was giving him time, hours on his own, to think and consider, to settle this new information inside his world before she called him back to hers. But she was also placing a limit on it, not letting him dwell on it or get caught in a whirlpool that had no exit.

She was doing the same thing she had always done for him. The thing she would always be there to do for him. She was giving him freedom, offering him control, and providing stability when he wanted it.

And with that behind him, G could face any unknown, because there would always be something stable to come home to.

Home.

He swallowed a lump in his throat.

Hetty looked up from her desk at that instant and met his eyes.

G gave her a nod and a little salute.

She hid a smile and nodded back.

That smile carried him all the way to Amy's grave.


End file.
